The Greek debt crisis, the expected lifting of sanctions on Iran and oil and stock market volatility will dominate the agenda of the BRICS summit which is opening today in Russia. During their two-day meeting in Ufa, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will discuss closer industrial, technological and financial integration of their countries within the five-nation bloc. The... 

A former senior FIFA official, Chuck Blazer, claimed he and others took bribes in exchange for supporting World Cup candidate countries in 1998 and 2010, an unsealed paper says. South Africa has denied paying any bribes. French reaction is pending. The 40-page transcript of a secret court session was published online on Wednesday, revealing more details surrounding Blazer’s 2013 guilty plea to charges... 

How South Africa confronts symbols of its difficult past are being discussed in newspaper columns, television talkshows and mainstream politics. A 112-year-old statue of Queen Victoria has become the latest colonial or apartheid-era monument to be vandalised in South Africa, raising fears that a racially charged debate over the country’s heritage could spiral out of control. Splashes of green paint... 

Racist “president” Robert Mugabe’s apparent disgust at seeing a “white face” has elicited mixed reactions from people on social networking site Twitter. Mugabe was in Soweto on Thursday visiting the Hector Pieterson Memorial. Exiting the museum, he was cheered by locals. In a video clip taken by the SABC, Mugabe is seen walking past the crowds when the national broadcaster’s television... 

According to newspaper reports recently unearthed by several rights groups in South Africa, murders of South African whites are being disguised by issuing death certificates showing that they had died of “natural causes”. At least three such cases have come to light. In a brutal murder, auto-electrician Henry Locke (41) was shot through the heart in front of his whole family on 5 October 2009.... 

The Russian State Duma has ratified the $100 billion BRICS bank that’ll serve as a pool of money for infrastructure projects in Russia, Brazil, India, China and South Africa, and challenge the dominance of the Western-led World Bank and the IMF. The New Development Bank is expected to start fully functioning by the end of 2015, according to the Russian Finance Ministry. Russia has agreed to provide... 

Ancient water found beneath the ground in the Earth’s crust. Geologists have discovered the Earth’s most ancient pocket of water, estimated to be 2.7 billion years old, buried deep beneath the ground. The researchers followed a scientific treasure map of places to investigate the ancient bodies of water on Earth. The investigation then led to the water discovery deep within the oldest rocks... 

Samantha Lewthwaite (‘White Widow’) The ‘White Widow’, a British female terrorist suspect who allegedly fought alongside ISIS terrorists in Syria and was sought internationally has reportedly been shot dead in Ukraine. The news was reported by Russia’s Regnum news agency. Samantha Lewthwaite, 30, was allegedly gunned down two weeks ago. However, no independent confirmation was available. A... 

A political analyst says the tightening of sanctions by the United States and the European Union (EU) against Russia is “counterproductive,” Press TV reports. In an interview with Press TV, Jan Oberg said the US-EU move to impose sanctions against Russia over the Ukrainian tension is “self-defeating” as it harms the economy of the West as well. “I think it is utterly counter-productive and... 

Some have said it is wrong that with hundreds of Africans dying from the outbreak of Ebola, extremely scarce supplies of an experimental drug went to two white American aid workers. But what if the first doses of the drug, which had never been used in people and had not even finished the typical animal safety testing, had been given to African patients instead? “It would have been the front-page... 

A new report prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) circulating in the Kremlin states that India’s veto earlier today of a landmark World Trade Organization (WTO) treaty has “shocked the world” and could very well lead to the entire collapse of this Western led global organization that for past 66 years has, in essence, economically destroyed too many once free nations to count. According... 

Western sanctions might push Russia to deepen cooperation with BRICS states, in particular, to strengthen its ties with China, which will possibly turn out to be a big catastrophe for the US and the EU some time later. On March 18, the spokesperson for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, claimed in a BBC interview that Russia would switch to new partners in case of economic sanctions being imposed by the... 

Two South African police officers have been arrested for allegedly beating an unarmed man in Cape Town. Moses Dlamini, a spokesman for the Independent Police Directorate of South Africa, said Saturday that the two officers would appear in court on March 10 on charges of assault. The arrests came after video footage emerged on March 7 showing the two armed uniformed police officers together with security... 

Congolese security forces have killed at least 40 people involved in a violent uprising in the capital Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) army says. The army said it had regained control of the state television headquarters, RTNC, army headquarters and the international airport in Kinshasa following an attack by some 70 gunmen early Monday. The clashes reportedly broke out between supporters... 

President Barack Obama delivers a speech next to a sign language interpreter (R) during the memorial service for late South African President Nelson Mandela at Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg. South Africa is searching for a sign language interpreter who failed to translate what world leaders said at the memorial of anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela on Tuesday. Outraged by the incident, the...